This invention relates to fiber and fabric finishes which impart dimensional stability, crease resistance and improved surface appearance to textile products made from cotton, polyester-cotton blends, polyesters, polyestersynthetic blends and the like.
The use of formaldehyde-derived products to improve the dimensional stability, crease resistance and appearance of fibers and fabrics is well known in the art of textile treatment.
Textiles treated with formaldehyde-containing resins have several disadvantages, including, in many cases, a harsh hand or feeling, an allergenic effect on some users and an increased tendency to pick up and hold oily soil. Bowers et al, U.S. Pat. No. 3,539,286 discloses that concurrent application of a formaldehyde resin, a low molecular weight polyoxyethylene terephthalate and an inorganic salt to polyester, cotton or rayon fibers greatly improves the soil resistance thereof.
Lark, U.S. Pat. No. 4,035,531 teaches that polyester fibers and filaments can be warp sized by application of a water-soluble polyester from a glycol of 2-6 carbon atoms and a polycarboxylic acid having at least three carboxyl groups. The resins have high acid numbers, greater than about 250. In addition, the resins improve the wettability characteristics, anti-static behavior and soil release tendencies of the fibers.
The use of a polyester resin based on isophthalic acid, polyether glycol, neopentyl glycol, trimethylolpropane and trimellitic anhydride in combination with a major proportion of starch in a sizing bath for polyester fibers used for sheeting is described by Amoco Chemicals Corp. (200 E. Randolph Drive, Chicago, Ill. 60601) in Bulletin IP-54.
Although the foregoing treating compositions solve one or more problems with respect to a specified type of fiber or fabric, their application effectively is generally limited to one type of fiber or fabric and the resulting treated fibers or fabrics may have one or several objectionable features, including allergenicity, poor hand, high soil retention, poor crease resistance, and low dimensional stability.
It is an object of this invention to provide a method of treating natural synthetic fibers, including but not limited to cotton, polyester-cotton blends, polyesters and polyester-synthetic blends, which imparts to the fibers or textile products made therefrom the dimensional stability, crease resistance and improved surface appearance normally associated with the use of formaldehyde resins and which further imparts to the fibers or fabrics improved hand, resistance to crocking and anti-snagging and anti-pilling properties.